In the late afternoon, I left another message with the dispatcher and decided that either Marino’s pager wasn’t working or he was too busy to find a pay phone. Candles glowed in my neighbors’ windows, an oblong moon shining high above trees. I played that Christmas music of Pavarotti and the New York Philharmonic, doing what I could to get into the proper frame of mind as I showered and dressed. The party I was to attend did not begin until seven. That gave me enough time to drop off Susan’s gift and have a word with her.

She surprised me by answering the phone, and sounded reluctant and tense when I asked if I could drop by.

“Jason’s out,” she said, as if that mattered somehow. “He went to the mall.”

“Well, I have a few things for you,” I explained.

“What things?”

“Christmas things. I’m supposed to go to a party, so I won’t stay long. Is that all right?”

“I guess. I mean, that’s nice.”

I had forgotten she lived in Southside, where I rarely went and was inclined to get lost. Traffic was worse than I had feared, the Midlothian Turnpike choked with last minute shoppers prepared to run you off the road as they ran their Happy Holidays errands. Parking lots swarmed with cars, stores and malls so garishly lit up it was enough to make you blind. Susan’s neighborhood was very dark and twice I had to pull over and turn on the interior light to read her directions. After much riding around, I finally found her tiny ranch-style house sandwiched between two others that looked exactly like it.

“Hi,” I said, peering at her through leaves of the pink poinsettia in my arms.

She nervously locked the door and showed me to the living room. Pushing books and magazines aside, she set the poinsettia on the coffee table.

“How are you feeling?”

I asked.

“Better. Would you like something to drink? Here, let me take your coat.”

“Thanks. Nothing to drink. I can’t stay but a minute.”

I handed her a package. “A little something I picked up when I was in San Francisco last summer.”

I sat on the couch.

“Wow. You really do your shopping early.”

She avoided my eyes as she curled up in a wing chair. “You want me to open it now?’

“Whatever you’d like.”

She carefully sliced through tape with a thumbnail and slipped off the satin ribbon intact. Smoothing the paper into a neat rectangle, as if she planned to reuse it, she placed it in her lap and opened the black box.

“Oh,” she said under her breath, unfolding the red silk scarf.

“I thought it would look good with your black coat,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like wool against my skin.”